The best guides, deals and tips for more frequent flyer points in Australia.

The best uses of Qantas Points – partners, upgrades and redemptions that offer most value

GUIDE: Using Points

DIFFICULTY: Easy

TIME TO READ: 6 minutes

POSTED: November 26, 2018

UPDATED: December 11, 2018

LOYALTY PROGRAMS: Qantas Frequent Flyer

With the companion article to this one, the best uses of Velocity Points – I figured it was time to look at and update this one too. The feedback I hear from many Point Hacks readers is that while Qantas Points are fairly easy to earn, they can be tough to redeem, especially for popular routes, such as Sydney to London and Melbourne to Los Angeles. So knowing where to get best value out of them becomes important.

The difficulty in redemption is a factor of supply and demand – more points on the market from various Qantas promotions, as well as frequent flyer and credit card partnerships means more points to go around. More points to go around means more competition for the same amount of seats on planes, and as a result, it can be tough to get the seats you want, when you want, in the cabin you want.

Notwithstanding, Qantas Points can be quite lucrative if used correctly – I like to keep building my Qantas balance where possible and here’s my take on why.

To date, this has been my preferred use of Qantas Points. When travelling on a paid Economy fare, requesting an upgrade using your points is relatively painless and I’ve had decent luck in getting them cleared.

On previous travels to Hong Kong I’ve upgraded myself to First Class twice using Qantas Points, making for a much better night’s sleep.

Most travellers with Silver or above status should find that the upgrade chances when using points are relatively good on all but the most popular flights routes.

Sure, if you choose a flight that’s on a peak route and at a peak hour, the chances will be slim – there will be more travellers with higher status to compete with – but if you can time your travels and put in your upgrade as early as possible, you should stand a shot.

With international travel, it’s a bit different – the upgrade lottery on longer routes seems understandably to be more competitive, and as a lower status passenger, most upgrades don’t usually clear. If I have the points though, I’ll still put in for the upgrade on the off-chance I’ll get lucky.

2. Using Qantas Points for Qantas Domestic and Trans-Tasman Business Class

For domestic routes, or across the Tasman to New Zealand, there is usually acceptable Business Class availability if you are flexible about your travel dates and times and look early enough for a points seat.

Traveling domestically with Qantas in Business Class using points will also get you access to Qantas domestic Business lounges, including the renovated Brisbane Business Lounge

As a 6’ 2” traveller I really value the extra space and I’m happy to pay the different in points for domestic Business Class – even on shorter hops.

3. Using Qantas Points for Jetstar Starclass redemptions

Jetstar now fly a significant number of routes that Qantas don’t, both internationally and domestically, and Qantas Points are pretty much the only way to redeem for Jetstar flights.

Jetstar’s StarClass cabin on their Boeing 787

If you aim to redeem your points to fly on a route that only Jetstar offers, then you’ll be wanting to earn Qantas Points to do so.

There’s a 20% discount on the points needed for a usual Business Class redemption for Jetstar Starclass when it’s available on a route, so you’ll get a decent amount of space which would only be significantly bettered by Qantas’ international grade Business Class.

4. Using Qantas Points for Emirates and Fiji Airways redemptions, and other Qantas-specific partners

Qantas have a select few unique airline partners which are not available through the general global alliances that other frequent flyer programs may be part of – Emirates and Fiji Airways are the two that come to mind that are of interest to me, personally.

For those who like to travel to Fiji from the East Coast, Fiji Airways offer the most frequent services with a nicely designed widebody aircraft, operating their A330 between Australia and Fiji.

Fiji Airways Business Class A330 cabin – their Economy cabin on the A330 is much more comfortable than the competition too, with fewer people, a bit more personal space and more room to move around the cabin

This aircraft is much more comfortable, and a slightly faster flight, than the alternatives with Virgin and Jetstar – though Virgin are starting to deploy their own A330 on Fiji routes originating from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on weekends in peak periods. It’s worth targeting over their 737 aircraft if possible.

Qantas Frequent Flyer and American Airlines AAdvantage are the two main frequent flyer program partners for Fiji Airways, so if you’re looking to target Fiji Airways for a trip to Fiji, Qantas Points are where it’s at.

Emirates have a unique network for relatively easily allowing you to travel into 2nd and 3rd tier cities in Europe and North Africa with just one stop – and although redemption availability is usually not great, there are opportunities to redeem Qantas Points on Emirates that are otherwise not widely available if you started to work with alternative frequent flyer programs.

Qantas Frequent Flyer members have access to the redemption seats made available by Qantas earlier than their oneworld partners – at 353 days out from travel.

Compared to the some of the other programs that compete for Qantas award availability – I’m looking at you, American Airlines – this gives us a 3 week head start to snag any award seats on Qantas flights at nearly a year out from travel.

The oneworld classic flight award on offer for your Qantas Points can be redeemed for trips where you are including two or more oneworld airlines not including Qantas, or three or more including Qantas.

When you meet this rule then this award table kicks in – where the biggest value is to be had at the upper end of the distance table by adding many long flights to your itinerary.

The top end of the distance range is where to aim – for a total distance flown of between 19,201-35,000 miles, you’ll be charged 210,000 Qantas Points in Premium Economy, 280,000 in Business Class, and 420,000 in First Class – but you’ll get a heap of travel included.

Only two transfers may be taken at any one city in the Itinerary (transfers are overland segments where you don’t fly between cities).

If you’re not interested in these options – where does that leave you?

This is an interesting question to ponder. Many people, myself included, are frustrated with Qantas premium cabin availability on their primary long-haul international routes such as to the USA or London.

If this is where you really want to use your points, then swapping Qantas as the airline you are targeting to travel with, and frequent flyer program to an alternative is probably needed, as Qantas’ redemption prices on partner airlines are poor.

If you earn most of your points through flying, there will be some detailed maths to do on your own travel routines and preferences to see if swapping to a oneworld partner program (and airlines you travel with, if possible) could be more lucrative.

If you earn most of your points with credit card spend (this is my situation), then target credit cards with flexible points programs which allow you to transfer you points to the frequent flyer program that makes most sense for your target redemption – examples being:

Related

Comments

Great article (and website) really used it to advantage. Recently booked 4 x Business class tickets for 280 000 points each as per Section 6 in the article. Just been acquiring credit cards each year with bonus offers and then cutting them up after 12 months. Used Award Nexus, BA site and Qantas site to identify availability. We are going CBR-SYD-KUL-HKG-JFK-DCA-MCO-JFK-LHR-DEL-HKG-MEL-CBR over five weeks. Our stopping ports being New York, Washington, Orlando and London with a day in Hong Kong twice. Flying Malaysian, Cathay Dragon, Cathay Pacific, AA, BA and Qantas (domestic only). A couple of points. Fees/taxes/charges were nearly $7000. You can only downgrade to economy on a leg if the plane you want to book on has no business class, ie if business class is booked or no reward seats are available you can’t go down a class. You can’t split a booking on a leg. Some legs I found several flights a day with 2 reward seats available but too bad. You also need to keep going broadly in the same direction (east or west). At one stage this stopped me as I was coming through Europe and needed to go back east before going forward west. I also found Qantas didn’t have great access to AA reward flights on USA/Japan which was a pity because Qantas reward flights from Osaka to Sydney were easy to find. Once a booking has been made Malaysian has the best site to view the booking and change seats etc. BA and Qantas systems seemed to struggle to ‘talk’ to each other.

Hi Kieth, great site! I’m very new to Qantas points. I’ve recently purchased 2 PE returns from Singapore to London with BA. Is there any chance of upgrading these flights using Qantas points? I have a ba executive club card (no points) if this is any help Ps. I’m getting to/from Singapore in Singapore Air business using velocity points on your great advice 🙂

I’m booked on a SYD -DXB economy ticket with a QF flight number operated by Emirates. Am I able to upgrade to premium economy? I’ve read somewhere that it has to be a QF flight number AND a Qantas plane in order to upgrade. Is that old information?

I booked a business class ticket from Melb-Paris with Emirates using Qantas Point. It was about 8 months in advance. I couldn’t get the one stop flight with A380s unfortunately. My flight is via KL to Dubai and then the A380 on to Paris. 128,000 points- probably one of the best redemptions I’ve got so far.

For my 2 cents worth the two major problems with QFF is (a) horrible award seat availability and (b) shockingly high taxes. I am looking forward to my latest redemption (2 x HBA-SYD-DXB-LGW – Emirates A380 F seats other than the QF J seats to Sydney) – was 192,000 points each. But the taxes were around $700 each. Pretty poor compared to Aadvantage options – we’re coming back in EY F (MAD-LHR-AUH-MEL-HBA) and taxes were less than $200 each (and 100,000 points each).

The other issue I have with QFF is that whenI have occasionally had to contact them to make/amend an award booking they have provided incorrect points prices (based on not properly understanding what is a transit vs a stopover) – both times if I hadn’t questioned their advice with some diligence they would have happily charged me more than they should have.

Personally, I prefer to go out of my way to earn Velocity points and purchase points with overseas programs than go out of my way to earn QFF points (though if they come my way easily you bet I will use them!)

Managed to redeem 2x one way first class tickets with Emirates A380 for 384,000 points from LHR – DXB – MEL in early May 2016. Used a multi city with 6 hour transit in Dubai to show availability as one-way itinerary only showed Qantas flight available. More than half those points came from sign up bonuses.

I’d like to draw attention to the oneworld classic award – 140 k economy, 280 k business, 420 k first for up to 35,000 miles, 16 segments and 5 stopovers (and a few other conditions, of course) with oneworld carriers. After around 50 hours reading up on this ever elusive award, my husband and I have just booked MEL-HKG-JFK-MAD-FRA-HKG-AKL-BNE-ADL-PER-MEL in J with an infant for 280 k points each (plus a few rounds of 3,500k points changes as many of these flights can only be booked over the phone, due to Qantas booking engine bugs and limited visibility of some award fares. We’ve chosen most of our long haul flights with CX and have managed to bring the whole trip to under $500 taxes each. Very happy with our use of these points before our daughter turns two and travel gets a whole lot more expensive!

I agree redemption on Emirates is arguably the best use of QFF as there is no other easy way of redeeming EK seats. AS points won’t allow EK flights outside of US so bit useless to us.

The good thing is the redemption rate on EK is same as QF, so you can experience shower in air for merely 56000 QFF points, or full first class service ex-BNE (the only F service out of BNE at present) starting 90000 QFF points.

Other good use of QF points I can think of is we have access to the inventory a lot earlier than AA and AS, so we can snatch those precious transpacific seats to US before the Americans do (who earns points a lot easier than us with lower redemption rate).

On the contrary, there are some poor redemption. One I can think of is “first class” on AA from LAX-SFO. It’s really a domestic business class but they market it as “first class” with a cost of 24000 miles(? Not too sure with exact figure), when you can redeem economy for 8000 points +$2.50 in taxes. (Which in itself is a sweet spot IMO)

I agree with you that Emirates redemptions are the best use of QFF points, and sometimes you can even redeem them for slightly less than expected (there seems to be a weird bug in the booking engine that crops up sometimes – that I’ve only encountered with Emirates redemptions – that occassionally gives a lower points required pricing than the chart states, with no class downgrades involved).

That AA domestic First quirk does have the flip side, however, of making for good earn and status credit opportunities (particularly if you can get it on an Instant Upgrade fare).

Yes 777 is ok, but you do feel a bit hemmed in by the 777 Business seat (in terms of width) as the console tends to intrude into your space (and the headphone plug is in a position that’ll you frequently knock) and the seat runs to the narrow side. The ICE system on the A380 is more advanced too, and of course no A380 bar to enjoy.

Still, Emirates redemptions via QFF are one of the few things to have improved that program of late.

I have quite a few qantas points and I am going to London from Sydney in August. I was looking at booking a one way qantas economy flight and then using my points to upgrade. From your article it looks like this might be a bit of a gamble?

I have quite a few Amex points too so was going to use them for my return flight but with a different airline, like Singapore who have better deals for using points.

It would be a gamble, yes. You might consider briefing Flightfox.com to look for a creative combination of paid fares and points availability. I’ve had some good luck with this for a friend recently, they found a $3.3k AUD fare from Kuala Lumpur, to London, to Melbourne in Business, for example, then using points to get up to KL.

A timely post Keith. Qantas points are getting much easier to earn but harder to use – there’s far more points people are trying to redeem but certainly not anymore award seats to match!

‘What is the value of a point’ is the question I’m asked by friends and family more than any other FF question and the answer is always ‘it depends entirely on how you use it’. A good general baseline to work from is always aiming to get more than 1c pp value. Redemptions through the Qantas store, gift vouchers, and for economy flights will rarely get you this (more like 0.6-0.8c pp).

As you said, redeeming for upgrades as well as business and first class redemptions will usually get you well over 1c pp value (often over 2c pp). But I’d always suggest the value of what you are redeeming for is the price YOU would be willing to pay, not some arbitrary price say by an airline. For example, SYD-LHR in Qantas Business return might cost $8,000. Would you be willing to pay this? I wouldn’t. Therefore its not worth $8,000 no matter how many points it requires. I’d probably pay, say, $4,000 for it, meaning its worth $4,000 to me, so redeeming any points needs to be calculated against the $4k, not the $8k. It’s only worth what you would be willing to pay for it.

Redeeming for Qantas domestic business upgrades is a fairly easy and reliable use of points but I do question the value of them as I’ve done it several times lately. On short routes where its say, 10,000 points to upgrade on a 1 hour flight, using the 1c pp value you’d need to get at least $100 value out of that hour. If you hold status with Qantas then you get many of the benefits of Business Class (priority everything etc) so its really only the slightly bigger seat and f&b. I always think about what f&b I could get at my destination for that $100 value and in almost all cases, its substantially better than the tray of fancy cafeteria food that would be served to me onboard, so I usually don’t see the full value in these redemptions.

I think redeeming for medium and long-haul partner business class, as well as Qantas A330 refurbished domestic trans-con awards is the sweet spot for use of Qantas points. Qantas international availability is appalling whereas partner availability is usually much better. You know you’re going to get a proper J product and on longer flights you’ve got more time and more treats to really enjoy.

Please dont think Jetstar Star Class is Business Class – its premium economy and the points levels should be considered against PE.

All totally valid points. The only other factor to consider is how ‘points-rich’ you are. If you have a lot of points, spending 10,000 on an upgrade to Business for Domestic travel has a much lower marginal cost, why not do it… But if you are saving for a redemption and don’t have enough points, you would of course keep them.

I think Qantas should rethink it’s Starclass pricing to bring it in line with Qantas PE, but we have to remember it’s not priced as Business Class, it is closer to PE in pricing than Business already. But they don’t do a good job of communicating that.

Good analysis Ben and I concur with the points you make. Although I’d add that Qantas Domestic Business catering onboard often struggles to even meet the fancy cafeteria grade level – far too often, even during the major meal times, the only real things on offer are that damned cheese box (of rather boring and tasteless cheeses) or soup (both, not surprisingly, low cost to the Qantas catering budget) and even if you are very lucky enough that their is something else, it’s often a cold salad type meal (again, cheap). At least with Virgin, regardless of the time of day, I am always offered a hot meal or snack in Business that frequently is very good. Virgin understands soups are entrees, cheese platters belong on the dessert course, and that main meals should be some form of hot meat or fish or pasta based dish. These days on Qantas, people travelling in Economy often get better than what’s being foisted on those in Business.

To save on the annual fees/hit to your credit history of multiple cards, Westpac Altitude (regular/platinum Visa, black MasterCard) can switch between Qantas points (monthly sweep) and Altitude Rewards with 10 days notice.

I just cashed in 228,000 Qantas points for two first class seats on Cathay HKG-ZUR. This route is right at the limit of Zone 6, so slightly better value than most other European detinations, plus theres plenty of connections both air and ground out from Zurich.

I don’t think so. I’ve redeemed once and this is what it says on the boarding pass: BG30, JLSF, WCII. In flyer talk someone has decoded: BG30 = 30kg checked luggage JLSF = JQ light saver fare WCII = Web Check-In International So with light saver fare, you don’t get lounge access. In my case, I have Qantas club membership so I have lounge access anyway.

StarClass (JQ) redemptions, even at 20% off normal QF J rates, are still way overpriced. StarClass is, after all, a Premium Economy product dressed up as Business – considering the QF J product on the A330-300s now, is StarClass within 20% of that? No.

I look on StarClass as only useful for leveraging J status credit earn (if MaxBundle used) given the lower fare pricing for StarClass, otherwise not much to recommend it (and I personally would rather pay more for real J).

The Qantas Frequent Flyer program is pretty poor for redemption – international upgrade lottery in particular really diminished the scheme (even as a Platinum there is always a good risk of an upgrade not coming through). Compared to AAdvantage or AsiaMiles, QFF is terrible on redemption rates.

The strength of QFF is in its Platinum level benefits (not world leading but decent) – not for its redemptions, upgrade opportunities, or anything like that. There aren’t even great point multipler opportunities for QFF, like US residents get for their loyalty schemes (US credit cards provide great point generating opportunities and benefits – that put Australian programs into the shade and then some). QFF isn’t the worst scheme out there, it’s just not a great scheme.

Agree with many of your points. Remember that Starclass points pricing is pretty close to that of Premium Economy (if they were both offered on the same route), with PE coming in at 1.5x that of Economy, and Starclass at 1.6x.